Marshall Softball Preview
By Sean Kelly, FM88 Sports Director
March 27, 2025
HUNTINGTON, W. Va. (WMUL-FM) — Friday marks the beginning of a series that will determine who stands atop the Sun Belt Conference standings, featuring the Sun Belt’s hottest team in the Marshall Thundering Herd and the Texas State Bobcats.
At 19-13 overall and 5-1 in Sun Belt play, the Herd won 13 of its past 15 games and six straight heading into its return to Dot Hicks Field. However, the Bobcats are not to be taken lying down.
Following its first series loss of 2025 against the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers, Texas State enters Huntington with a 20-8 overall record while going 4-2 in conference play. Despite their most recent series loss, the Bobcats enter on a similar hot streak, winning eight of their past 10 games.
This series proves to be a battle between one of the top pitching and hitting cores in the conference. Texas State enters the series with a 2.81 team ERA, second-best in the SBC, facing off against a Thundering Herd core that hits a combined .311 (fourth in the Sun Belt), and 38 home runs (second most in the SBC).
In the opposing batter’s box, Texas State is one of the five teams in the Sun Belt Conference hitting over .300 as a team, and its leading hitter is on a record-breaking pace. With two home runs in TSU’s most recent contest, junior infielder Aiyana Coleman hits .391 this season with 10 home runs, five away from tying the team’s single-season record. With an .899 slugging percentage, Coleman is on pace to break the Bobcats’ current record of Ariel Ortiz’s .800 SLG in 2020.
Though freshman Diamond Leslie leads the team in batting average at .405, senior first baseman Rielly Lucas leads the Herd in home runs with nine. Four of which came in the team’s most recent series in Harrisonburg, Va. against the James Madison Dukes. After racking up four home runs, five hits and three walks, as well as her second career multi-homer game, Lucas earned Sun Belt Conference Player of the Week honors this past Tuesday.
You can tune in to the series opener on WMUL-FM 88.1 or online at marshall.edu/wmul. FM88 Sports’ Ben Anderson will be on call for Friday’s game, with pregame coverage beginning at 5:45 p.m. and first pitch at 6.